A woman at the door

This was the first photograph I took after breaking my ankle. It was shot just over two weeks after the accident during my first real trip beyond the house. We’d gone out to visit the Chinese supermarket to re-stock on instant noodles (which I’ve taken a fondness to over the last couple of months, and which the Chinese supermarket has a bewildering selction from which to choose) and so I took the Yashicamat with me on the chance that I might make a photograph or two. In the end I shot the whole roll during the hour or so we were out. I don’t think it’s the best roll I’ve ever shot but it was good to scratch the photographic itch.

The photo below was intended to be a picture of the building itself but, as I framed up the shot, the lady appeared in the doorway at just the right time.

Yashicamat 124G & Ilford HP5+. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 9mins @ 20°

Taken on 27 August 2022

A royal funeral and some street art

I’ve spent the entire day watching the funeral of the Queen today (well, apart from watching the latest episode of House of the Dragon while eating my breakfast. I guess that was about a queen too, although tonally, it was somewhat darker…).

As I spoke about a few days ago, I’m far from a royal watcher, but I felt that this was a truly historic event and one I ought to watch for that reason even if for no other. There were two funeral services broadcast – the state funeral at Wesminster Abbey, attended by heads of state and other guests, and the smaller (but only by comparison) service at Windsor Castle where, among other things, the Queen’s crown, along with the orb and sceptre, were formally taken from her to be presented to King Charles when his coronation takes place. While there will be a final private service for family this evening, where the Queen will be buried beside her late husband, it maked the final public appearance of her coffin and felt like the final closure of the past week-or-so’s events.

The funeral marks the end of this period of official national mourning and means that things should begin to return to normality again from tomorrow, although I expect that it will be a fading out rather than a sudden halt to all the discussion about the events.

Today’s picture has nothing whatsoever to do with the funeral of the Queen, but I always post a picture, so this is a completely unrelated image of a man walking past some attractive street art in Manchester.

Olympus 35 RC & Kodak Portra 800 (shot at 400asa). Lab developed. Home scanned and converted with Negative Lab Pro.

Taken on 10 August 2022

Last shots

An ominously final sounding title for my blog today but, fear not, it’s just referring to the two pictures posted here today specifically. As I’ve posted about a few times, I broke my ankle about six weeks ago while on a day trip to Manchester. The two pictures here are related to the incident.

This first image is the last shot I took before the accident. It was made while I walked down the road towards the art gallery where, not too long after, I would fracture my fibula as I exited the building.

The second picture was taken later, after my journey home, and after several hours in the accident and emergency department of the local hopital, After finally leaving the building I sat on a bench outside and waited for my wife to collect me in the car. The sun had set and blue hour had kicked in. Hospital buildings such as these were not my first choice for subject matter for this roll of film but I had little other option given my injury would allow small chance of going out to shoot more for a while. So it seemed worthwhile to finish the roll so I could at least get it developed.

Olympus 35 RC & Kodak Portra 800 (shot at 400asa). Lab developed. Home scanned and converted with Negative Lab Pro.

Taken on 10 August 2022

Station music

Today was my annual visit to the seaside town of Mablethorpe. It’s been a long day, I’ve only just got home, and I’m tired, so this will be a short post. The pictures I took at Mablethorpe will appear in due course once they’ve been developed and scanned (and I’ve worked through my backlog of other shots).

So, for today, here’s another picture of another of those upright pianos that can be found at railway stations around the country.

Olympus 35 RC & Kodak Portra 800 (shot at 400asa). Lab developed. Home scanned and converted with Negative Lab Pro.

Taken on 10 August 2022

Street scenes

A couple of photos from Manchester’s Northern Quarter. Just street scenes, but I thought they made for interesting subjects with plenty to look at. It would have been nice if I hadn’t broken my ankle on this day – not just because of the pain and incapacitation it caused, but also because I think I could have easily shot another roll of film had I had the rest of the day and, as I’m very happy with the way this single roll turned out, I expect I might have been similarly pleased with any more I might have made.

Olympus 35 RC & Kodak Portra 800 (shot at 400asa). Lab developed. Home scanned and converted with Negative Lab Pro.

Taken on 10 August 2022

Going out is the new staying in

After a considerable period of “staying in” while I recovered from my broken ankle, I’ve now returned to “going out” once more. Not to bars, but out with my camera and, in the mornings, for a walk as I gradually build back up to running again, so today’s picture felt slightly apt.

I’ve had a stressful few days as I prepared to interview for a job today. It’s a similar role to the one I do already but at a more senior grade. While I already carry out a number of the tasks that it will involve, I will also have to pick up additional responsibilities and new challenges if I am successful. While I know I have the ability to do the jog – indeed I’m very confident I do – I’m less confident of my abilities when it comes to interviews. While I don’t think it went too badly, you never can tell with these things, so I’ve spent a lot of the day re-playing things over in my head, second-guessing what I said, and berating myself for all the times I used the word “we” instead of “I”. I now have to wait for the outcome . Fingers crossed that the things I did well have outshone any where I might have slipped up.

Olympus 35 RC & Kodak Portra 800 (shot at 400asa). Lab developed. Home scanned and converted with Negative Lab Pro.

Taken on 10 August 2022

The loss of a lab

I received the sad news yesterday that my local film lab appears to have closed down. I last used them about a month ago to process the roll of Portra 800 which I’ve been sharing photos from the past few days and had planned to drop another roll of C41 off in the next week. I took a look at their website the other evening and noticed that it appeared to be offline, just displaying a blank page with no content, but assumed a temporary problem. But then, yesterday, someone else mentioned that there were posts on Twitter about it having been closed when it was visited in person and that the nearby businesses reported no-one has been seen for over a week. Some people on Twitter are concerned because they have posted film to be developed and now have no idea what has happened to their rolls.

I don’t know the precise cause of the closure, but it would appear to have been quite sudden.

I’m sad about this happening. They were a good lab with friendly and helpful staff (to whom I send my thoughts that they are ok). I stopped using them quite as much during and following the pandemic as, when they had to close for a few months as part of the lockdown, I taught myself how to develop black and white film at home, but I still regularly took all my C41 and E6 films there. It looks like I will now have to start using my local camera store for film developing services. While it’s still relatively convenient, being just on the edge of the city centre, it won’t be the same as the short walk I’ve been able to take advantage of these past few years.

I’m not sure if anything will happen to the lab – whether it is closed permanently, or might be rescued in some fashion – but it’s disappointing news for sure.

Today’s picture is from the first roll of film I had developed at the lab back in 2016.

Olympus Trip 35 & Kentmere 400 film.

Taken: 9 August 2016

Do things have to be in focus?

I took this picture almost without thinking. I didn’t have time to accurately focus, just frame the shot and try to get it as close as I could. This being the one of the first times I’ve used the Olympus 35 RC in quite a while, I did my best to rapidly twist the focus ring to get the man in close focus. Unfortunately I twisted it the wrong way, towards infinity.

But I still like the photo. Would I have preferred the man in focus and background sofly blurred? Probably. But This still looks nice. The lack of focus on the figure adds a bit of mystery, I think.

It’s a technique used often by street and documentary photographer, Martin Parr, although I suspect he does it deliberately rather than through not remembering how his camera works!

Olympus 35 RC & Kodak Portra 800 (shot at 400asa). Lab developed. Home scanned and converted with Negative Lab Pro.

Taken on 10 August 2022

Living in Tetris

This interesting looking residential building is in Manchester’s Northern Quarter and it reminded me a little of Tetris. It might be the bright, sunny conditions, but it also reminded me of the sort of scene you might see in a European city, perhaps in Spain or somewhere like that.

Olympus 35 RC & Kodak Portra 800 (shot at 400asa). Lab developed. Home scanned and converted with Negative Lab Pro.

Taken on 10 August 2022

Lemurs

This image, and the other Olympus 35 RC / Portra 800 shots I’m posting at present, were all shot on the fateful day that I broke my ankle back in August. The ankle is almost fully healed now – it still aches a little in the morning but otherwise gives me little or no discomfort whatsoever, and I’ve been able to walk around on it just fine for a couple of weeks or more. It did prevent me from going out and taking photographs for a while though.

Luckily for me, I had shot three rolls of film not long before on the trip to the Yorkshire coast my wife and I had taken, so was able to keep images flowing on the blog, but I had concerns that I would start to run out if I didn’t get back on my feet quickly. I also had the roll of film that I’d been shooting while in Manchester on the day I had my accident. I’d shot the majority of the frames by the time my ankle went snap and shot the remaining few images while limping back to the station and the final two frames outside the hospital back in Sheffield while waiting for my wife to pick me up. I’m fortunate that many of the pictures on this roll are ones I like and am happy to publish. I’m also happy about this because it might give me enough photos to populate a zine for the zine-swap I’m due to take part in soon.

I’ve since managed to shoot another couple of rolls of film, one which I’ve delveloped today, so the blog still has a reasonable supply to choose from, which is nice.

The picture below is one of the photos I was really pleased with from the roll. The colours are great, I think it’s an interesting image, and there’s quite a bit of detain to nosey around at if you’re so inclined.

Olympus 35 RC & Kodak Portra 800 (shot at 400asa). Lab developed. Home scanned and converted with Negative Lab Pro.

Taken on 10 August 2022